Brother Tree
by Haberdashing
Summary: Transcendence AU. The tale of a girl and her not-so-imaginary friend.


Minerva never stopped believing in her imaginary friend.

He simply wouldn't let her.

He started appearing just when she was growing bored with her earlier imaginary friend, a girl her own age named Jess who would play games with her when nobody else would. This imaginary friend wasn't quite so good at joining her for play time. He was nowhere to be found in a game of hide-and-seek, and though he would occasionally deign to hold the rope for her in a game of jump rope, these attempts ended in disaster as often as not. In fact, he never appeared physically to her at all.

But he was there for her, in his own unique way.

He left messages on the walls when nobody else was watching and gave her all sorts of wondrous toys that she hid in the increasingly-crowded space under her bed: ribbons that moved in tune with her every thought, metal trinkets that glimmered even when there was no light for them to reflect, coats that were fluffy and warm in the winter and light and cool in the summer and were always her favorite color.

While he gave her much in the way of material possessions, this imaginary friend proved himself unwilling to give up the knowledge of his identity. Not only did he refuse to show himself in the flesh, but he never let her see an image of his appearance, or even gave her the briefest description of how he looked. And when she asked about his name, he would either abruptly change the subject or stop responding to her entirely.

But he did grant her one clue as to their connection, to who he was in relation to her if not to his identity on its own terms. He called her sister, claimed to be her brother, though she was an only child. And before he began every conversation in earnest- him communicating through writing and her through the spoken word, for he could hear her just fine despite his own lack of speech- he drew a quick sketch of a tree. It did not resemble the kind of tree that lined the roads surrounding her home, the ones whose leaves were consumed with brilliant fiery hues every autumn before turning crunchy and brown and sinking into the earth, only to be replaced in the spring with tender green buds that would grow for months before continuing the cycle. No, this tree resembled those from up north, those that she knew from pictures rather than from any personal experience, the ones with pointed needles rather than soft leaves that remained the same all year round.

Brother Tree, she called him.

And he responded to that name, and from then on, she thought of him by no other.

Her parents had mixed reactions to the development of this new imaginary friend. Dave-Dad seemed unconcerned- it was natural for a kid to have imaginary friends, he said, and recalled having a few of his own at that age. Ron-Dad wondered if Minerva was acting out of longing for a real brother of her own- and it was true that she had always desired a sibling, a life-long companion that would never leave her side even when the rest of the world did- but he made no effort to fulfill his daughter's desire through more conventional means. The two dismissed her insistence that Brother Tree had been the one to initiate their connection, that he had sought her out rather than vice versa, as wishful thinking regarding how she wished for the approach of friends of flesh and blood.

Mom alone seemed to think that there was something unusual about the presence of Brother Tree, about her claims of communicating with somebody who nobody could see. It was Mom alone who hired an investigator with the Sight to scope out their home for signs of poltergeists or shape-shifters, and though she told Minerva nothing about what happened during that search or what thoughts she had regarding the true nature of Brother Tree, the concern and uncertainty in her voice during the hushed discussion with the investigator in the other room was unmistakable.

As the other children at school stopped speaking of their imaginary friends, Minerva brought up Brother Tree less and less. Slowly, she made one or two friends among her peers, assuaging the worry of her parents about her apparent social isolation. Her life went on as all lives do, with some bumps along the road, successes and failures in equal measure, with little to indicate that she was anything out of the ordinary.

But she still called on Brother Tree in the dead of night, when the others were sleeping, if she needed advice or just someone to talk to.

Brother Tree was there for her when she failed a Latin test and worried that that one failure would spiral out of control and leave the rest of her life in shambles. He was there for her when her first girlfriend broke up with her, and when she instigated a messy break-up with the next. He was there when her fish died, when her cat died, when Ron-Dad died. He could provide only words, words and the occasional knick-knack, but words were usually enough to console her, to remind her that this too would pass in due time.

Minerva vowed to become an author, to teach others what she had learned about the power of words.

And soon enough, she grew up, no longer a girl but a blossoming young lady. And she had long since stopped speaking of Brother Tree to anybody, and she took elaborate precautions to prevent any from learning of him, having learned her lesson after a crush had stumbled upon the two mid-conversation right before Minerva had been about to ask her out and promptly pretended that they had never met, let alone grown close to one another.

(As it happened, the crush in question fell ill with a bad case of mono the very next day, so Minerva was left not entirely unhappy about the situation.)

Minerva had never needed much in the way of sleep, and though she often stayed out until the wee hours of the morning finding fun and friends where she could, the young woman never let this prevent her from excelling academically as well as socially. She took both her classes and her friendships seriously, and she thrived in both realms.

And so it was that, though the paper on which she was working was not due for almost two weeks, Minerva buried herself in the far reaches of the school library, surrounding herself with tall stacks of books concerned with the history of demonology.

History had never been her best subject. She had consulted Brother Tree once or twice after he let slip that he was "old"- he never elaborated on how old "old" was- but she preferred to face her weaknesses independently, hoping that hard work and sheer determination could make up for a lack of natural talent. Still, after reading chapter upon chapter of largely redundant information, of which only a few mere scraps were even slightly relevant to her paper topic, the woman's eyelids grew heavy, and she felt just about ready to doze off.

Blah blah blah Transcendence blah blah early demonologists blah blah blah disproved theory blah…

And then she saw it, and her blood ran cold. A rare illustration in a book filled with minuscule text and footnotes on every other line.

The caption called it "one of the earliest known symbols of Alcor the Dreambender. Significance unknown."

Minerva knew it as the signature of her beloved Brother Tree.

She raced back to her apartment, history paper and pile of books forgotten, slamming the door before locking it behind her, grateful that she had chosen to forego having a roommate this year.

"Brother Tree!"

She didn't bother to keep her voice down, though she usually spoke to him in whispers rather than shouts, knowing that he would hear her speech just the same regardless. But the walls were thick enough that the neighbors couldn't eavesdrop, even if it hadn't been the middle of the night.

As she waited for her response, the woman caught her breath, adrenaline ebbing away after her sprint home, though her heart kept racing just the same.

Finally came the dark sketch on the wall that she had been waiting for, though the evergreen tree was drawn crudely, a stark contrast from its usual smooth and seamless appearance.

It was definitely the same sign as in the book.

Soon after followed a lone question mark, an oddity among their conversations. When she called his name and said nothing else, he always either wrote out a full sentence, impeccable in spelling and phrasing, asking what she wanted to talk about, or else simply waited for her elaboration after signaling that he was there. A lone punctuation mark, clear though its meaning was, threw off Minerva's expectations.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to clear her mind of its muddled thoughts, to calm her pounding heartbeat.

"Are you a demon?"

Only a few seconds separated the question from its answer, the reply written hastily in shaky lettering.

 _I may be, but I am also your brother, and I care about you very much, demon or no._

She took a step back and pressed her arm against a table to steady herself.

"That's not possible. Demons don't have human sisters, or… or friends, or _care_ about people…"

The young woman took great pains to hold back her tears.

The awkward, silent minutes-long that followed was followed by a disproportionately short response from Brother Tree- from the demon.

I _do._

Some part of her, some deep, instinctual knowledge, wanted to believe him instantly, despite everything. But the rest of her knew the logic wasn't there, the demon's story not quite making sense.

Minerva began pacing back and forth, the rhythmic movement burning off unwanted energy.

"That doesn't make _sense_. I mean, you _are_ Alcor, right?" She didn't wait for a response before continuing. "I've read about you, you have no reason to deal with me- unless this was all some kind of _trick_ \- and all these years, you never really… you just wanted…"

Minerva finally lost her battle against the stream of tears that fought to escape. As her vision blurred over, it took her a while to realize that he had responded, and even longer to make her eyes dry enough to read the message.

 _I don't need a reason to look after my Mizar._

She threw her hands up in the air. "Nice try, but I've done my research! Mizar's a DEMON!"

 _Do they really still think that?_

"Stop it! Just-" Minerva ran up to the wall and hit it, though she knew that it would accomplish nothing but making her hand ache. "-just stop it! I'm not buying it, okay? I know better than to trust a demon to tell the truth!"

 _I can prove our connection if I must. You may be less than happy with me afterwards, though. Do you accept?_

She rolled her eyes and snorted. "Sure. Fine. Go ahead and 'prove' it. I'd like to see what you come up with."

And then Minerva, whose pacing had slowed to a halt, felt herself take a step towards her desk.

And another.

She tried to speak, though she did not know what words could adequately explain her confusion, but her mouth refused to obey her commands.

She was a captive in her own body.

Step by step, the woman found herself marching towards the desk, flipping open an unused notebook, grasping the nearest pen tightly in her right hand (she was left-handed, but that was hardly her primary concern at that moment), and making a sketch in a handwriting that was not her own.

First one triangle, then one of a similar size overlapping the first…

Only after drawing a thick line down the center of the two and extending past their boundaries did Minerva recognize the symbol.

Alcor's symbol.

Brother Tree's pine tree.

Then her limbs relaxed, she dropped the pen, and a quick and tentative stretch let her know that her body was hers to control once more- at least, unless... whatever that was happened again.

The only word that she managed to stammer out was a simple, "What?"

The words appeared now not on the wall, but on the sheet of notebook paper, below the symbol that she was still examining.

 _I told you._

"I…" The pieces still weren't quite fitting together in her head.

 _Is that proof enough for you?_

"…wait. You're a demon… so let's make a deal."

The woman rushed into the kitchen and retrieved a plate nearly overflowing with soft, thick brownies, a few crumbs falling off as she rested the plate upon her desk.

"Here. These brownies are the last thing Ron-Dad ever gave me. Home-made. And they're sweets- you like sweets, right? That has to be worth something."

The page filled with more words, dark and small and tidy.

 _And in exchange?_

"You explain this whole… Mizar… business to me. Tell me the truth about why you're here. Tell me everything."

Brother Tree's- Alcor's- previous words disappeared as though they had never been there, leaving behind only the pine tree symbol that Minerva herself had drawn with ink rather than with magic, before filling the space with his response, the letters thick and large enough to make the short response take up almost all the space remaining on the page.

 _TELL NO ONE OF THIS!_

"Fine. Of course. Won't tell a soul. Now-" she waved her hand in the general direction of the brownies- "-do you want these or not? Do we have a deal?"

She had to squint to make out his answer, which was, in its entirety, rendered nearly the same size as a single letter from his previous response.

 _Deal._

The plate of brownies disappeared in a flash of bright white-yellow light.

And Alcor explained.


End file.
